With Warner Bros. very interested in churning out a prequel to their 2007 smash hit 300, the assumption was that the director of the original, Zack Snyder, would remain at the helm. However, Vulture is now reporting that Warner Bros. has offered the film, titled Xerxes, to Sherlock Holmes director Guy Ritchie. While nothing is set in stone yet, Vulture does have some convincing theories as to why this change might take place.
First off, if Warner Bros. doesn’t put Snyder’s upcoming Superman film into production by 2013 they will lose the movie rights to the Man of Steel to the estate of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the two creators of Superman. So they might be more concerned with Snyder getting Superman off the ground than having him revisit the 300 world.
Vulture also claims that Snyder’s Superman film is experiencing major script problems and that his upcoming all-girl action pic Sucker Punch (set to be released on March 25) received awful reviews after a recent test screening. So the shine may be coming off of the Snyder apple in the eyes of Warner Bros.
So, between Superman getting fast-tracked and having a problematic script, coupled with Sucker Punch being a potential bomb, Warner Bros. might feel as though replacing Snyder with Ritchie is in their best interest. After all, Sherlock Holmes made a boatload of money and Guy Ritchie doesn’t physically harass the slow-motion button during the editing process like Snyder does. If Ritchie does get the gig, it will be interesting to see if he maintains Snyder’s unique visual style because of how pivotal it was to 300's success.
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